Jewish Congress Leaders Confer on Whether to Picket Jordan Pavilion

Top officials of the American Jewish Congress met in special session today to determine whether to proceed with plans to picket the Jordan Pavilion at the World’s Fair after Fair president Robert Moses formally refused permission for such picketing. Mr. Moses, in a message today to the Congress president, Dr. Joachim Prinz, said: “We shall not license picketing to encourage international incidents in a fair primarily devoted to promoting friendship through increased understanding.”

Rabbi Prinz had asked permission for him and 12 other officers to picket the Jordan Pavilion on May 25. The target of their objections is a mural which alludes to Israelis as “terror’s fierce practitioners” and accuses them of using their “gains ill-got” to “disturb Jordan’s course and make the desert bloom with warriors. ” A wide variety of Jewish organizations have denounced the mural and demanded its removal.

Mr. Moses, in his message, referred to an earlier statement, sent on April 25, to the American-Israel Pavilion in reply to a request for removal of the mural. Mr. Moses then said that “no good purpose would be served by exaggerating the significance of this reference to national aims or attributing racial animus to it.”